1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to a method, apparatus and system for editing, storing and providing bitstreams, and more particularly to a method, apparatus and system for editing, storing and providing bitstreams through keypoint comparison.
2. Description of the Related Art
Advertisement revenues are a critical foundation in operations of television stations. Currently, rather than being determined by contents of programs during which an advertisement is broadcasted in commercial breaks, a price of the advertisement is determined by timeslots. Thus, an entrepreneur paying for broadcasting the advertisement needs to select the price and timeslot in advance. As a substantial amount of money is paid to a television station, an entrepreneur expects a maximum beneficial result out of the advertisement broadcasted. Yet, a conventional advertisement broadcast approach may not always succeed in stimulating and increasing consumer desires in making purchases as anticipated by the entrepreneur.
To better explain a relation between program contents and advertisement contents, contents of a bitstream data are represented in long strips in the accompanying drawings. An unshaded part represents a source multimedia bitstream, i.e., actual contents of a television program; a shaded part represents advertisement contents.
FIG. 1A shows a schematic diagram of an unedited source multimedia bitstream and unedited advertisement bitstreams. A source multimedia bitstream 10 represents original television program contents before inserting in advertisement contents. A first advertisement bitstream 13a and a second advertisement bitstream 13 respectively represent contents of two advertisements.
FIG. 1B shows a schematic diagram of the advertisement contents inserted to the source multimedia bitstream in FIG. 1A. As observed from FIG. 1B, the contents of the source multimedia bitstream are not continuously played due to the newly inserted first advertisement bitstream 13a and the second advertisement bitstream 13b therein, and so an edited multimedia bitstream 15 is generated as a result.
When a television station broadcasts the edited multimedia bitstream 15, a sequence of the edited multimedia bitstream 15 perceived by a user is first-part program contents 10a, advertisement contents of the first advertisement bitstream 13a, second-part program contents 10b, advertisement contents of the second advertisement bitstream 13b, and third-part program contents 10c. 
However, the conventional solution for editing bitstreams may incur an issue below. When contents of the source multimedia bitstream 10 are a movie associated with car racing, the advertisement contents of the first advertisement bitstream 13a and the second advertisement bitstream 13b may be advertisements selling nutritional supplements or furniture. That is, the program contents may be not at all relevant to the advertisements such that a viewer may not connect oneself with or be impressed by the advertisements broadcasted in the above approach.
To reinforce the relevancy between a program and an advertisement, the conventional solution adopts embedded marketing as an alternative approach. That is, when filming a program, a product to be advertised is arranged in an image of the program.
Taking the classic 007 movie series for example, numerous state-of-the-art products with novel functions including computers, sports cars or other technology products are utilized by a leading role in the movies. When the movies are newly launched, audiences at that time may be highly interested in the technology products seen in the movies, and sale numbers of the products are stimulated as a result. However, as the technology progresses continuously, the state-of-the-art products seen in the movies then may now be rather outdated. Usually, a movie is only broadcasted by a television station after a considerable period of time from a first launch date of the movie. Thus, at the time when the movie is broadcasted by a television station, it is possible that products placed in the movie as custom-made embedded marketing become outdated or even discontinued products when the movie is played over and over again.
For example, although a viewer may be quite impressed with a display device in a movie filmed ten years ago, at a current time point of ten years after the movie is filmed, it is unlikely that the viewer purchases a display device having a same model number as the display device appeared in the movie. For example, compared to ten years earlier, a mainstream technique of displays has long evolved from cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors to liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors. Therefore, although embedded marketing may coordinate with program contents for advertisements and publicity, such advertisement approach may on the other hand emphasize that products are outdated as the time passes by.
In view of the above, there is a need for a solution for inserting appropriate advertisement contents during broadcasting of programs to optimize advertising effects.